Meet Kathalina (Kat) Plummer Thorpe, the First Place Three Minute Thesis Competition Award recipient. Kat is a Theatre Design and Technology Masters student with a Scenic Design concentration.
Please give a short overview of your research.
My research with earthworms is to make strides in Theatrical Costuming and Fashion industry waste by using earthworms to compost mass amounts of waste. With 92 million tons of clothing waste dumped into landfills each year we could make a huge difference by ridding landfills of that additional trash. Continuing forward we now need to do soil tests from what the worms have already composted and fabricate a small table top sized fabric shredder to make the waste manageable for the worms to break down.
What made you choose to pursue your graduate degree here at Â鶹ӰԺ State?
I attended the trip to Prague that is run by Professor Eric Kildow in 2019 as a guest student from my Undergraduate program. He then pointed me at Professor Tammy Honesty and upon following her and her journey with her students I knew that I wanted her to mentor me through my degree. Â鶹ӰԺ is also one of the few schools that allows Graduates studying Theater to get time teaching classes.
What do you enjoy most about attending Â鶹ӰԺ State for graduate school? and/or What do you anticipate taking advantage of at KSU?
I love my Cohort. They are some of the most wonderful humans I have ever met. I did not realize I would like Ohio so much either being from the south. The people here are amazing and supportive.
What are your future goals?
I am here to get my MFA so that I might be a professor in my own right and continue to make strides in green theatre practices. I am a single mom and on top of that my oldest child is special needs so I also wish to bring out new and accommodating ways to teach technical work and design to neuro divergent students like my son. Art is for every one. Through education, green research and practices, and accessibility I hope to be able to continue to push the way we do theater into a promising sustainable future with my amazing colleagues.
What does this award mean to you and how will it aid you?
I am humbled, baffled, and grateful to receive this award. It bolsters me to keep pushing my research further and see that the writing of articles and the future collaboration across departments of the university comes to fruition before I graduate. I would one day love to be able to make a tenure track faculty position and research is helpful, but even if that aspect never comes to pass the fact that this could help my industry as well as others is an amazing foot print to leave behind. They may never know your name or see where it all started but if 10 years down the road we have a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution to waste that is good enough for me.